


Oil, water

by thecaralong



Category: Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars RPF, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Utter Garbage, im sorry baby jesus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecaralong/pseuds/thecaralong
Summary: As they head into the making of Episode IX, Daisy reflects on how her relationship with Adam changed during the intimacy of filming of The Last Jedi.





	1. Surprised, not ready

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of acknowledgements at the end I'll do apologies at the beginning: Daisy doesn't deserve this, Adam doesn't deserve this, especially Adam's wife doesn't deserve this. I apologize to them and to everyone in the Reylo fandom that I am unintentionally giving a bad name. 
> 
> I didn't do in-depth research for this so please let me know about any easy fixes that might make it more accurate. 
> 
> I wish I had juicy scoop on IX but it's mostly all made up.

She's expecting to see him at the table read...but not at the hotel.

 

She exits the elevator on the third floor, fumbling in her purse for her room key card, and when she looks up - he's there. She's not ready. _She was supposed to have until the table read._ 13 more hours. Two meals, an entire night's sleep. That's a lifetime. She pauses involuntarily when she sees him, like her legs don't work anymore. She has to concentrate on the muscles to get them moving again.

 

He's surprised to see her too. Surprised, not ready. He's standing outside his room - 304 - tipping the bellhop and helping him unload luggage off a giant gold cart. There's a lot more luggage than Adam would have for himself for such a short trip...his wife must be here too.

 

The bellhop notices his acute gaze and follows it, twirling around to see her coming up the hallway behind him with unsure, mechanical steps. He's the consummate professional, but betrays a hint of excitement at seeing _another_ famous actor. (He has no idea she's plying her trade right now.) She smiles at him - that modest and understanding smile she has perfected in the handful of years of being a part of this mad wonderful world - then turns her attention upward to the tall man with the dark hair (and the powerful eyes).

 

“Daisy.” He smiles – slowly, warmly, fully – that adorable, quirked-to-one-side smile that the world sees too little of. There was nothing else like that smile. But it is gone in a second, replaced by a sort of default expression that is thoughtful and distant.

 

“Hi, Adam.” This time it's her tongue that won't function, and there's a long beat while she tries to decide what to say and can't, and settles lamely on: “You're here!” She's stumbling over small talk like it's a monologue she failed to memorize.

 

He makes no move to hug her. She's not sure if she's disappointed - or if that excites her. It's not too late for her to lift her own arms and initiate an embrace of greeting, but she doesn't.

 

They both swallow at the same time, but he doesn't look away.

 

It's a repeat of the way it was two years ago – the first time they had seen each other after filming _The Force Awakens_ , when they were reunited for a whirlwind of publicity and premieres. That same awkwardness - Do we hug?; Should I stand next to him?; Is “How are you?” too insultingly polite? All borne of not really being friends in an environment where everyone expects them to be. Only its all upside down now, it's the same but spun out after their time together making _The Last Jedi_. And here they are, about to do it all over again for a third time.

 

“Don't tell me you left your script behind in your room, unguarded,” he jokes after the silence goes on for too long, eyeing her tiny purse. It's not like him to be the one to break the silence. He is a silence warrior.

 

“Definitely not. I had it surgically implanted into my body,” she nods, “so that no one could even look at it unless I was dead.”

 

“That seems only right. But I hope you had it laminated first.”

 

“I did. Of course, I had to kill the person at Office Depot who helped me.”

 

“Of course.”

 

This stupid conversation could have gone on forever. She's still sitting on a joke about the lamination interfering with the self-destruct feature. But it falters into unsure smiles and more swallowing.

 

The bellhop is enjoying the exchange immensely and Adam spares him a quick grin, teasing knowledge of what is coming in the next movie in the way that they had all learned to do with press and eager fans. The bellhop carries a suitcase or two into the room – Daisy doesn't really notice – and when she finally looks again - after wondering what kind of story her eyes are telling and if it's obvious – he and his cart are long gone.

 

There's a different air between her and Adam, now that it's only them. The door to his room is open, presumably Joanne in there somewhere, and the hotel hallway is a public place, but for the moment they're alone.

 

“So, what did you think of it?” he asks, and the question seems loaded. She recognizes the voice he uses – it reminds her more of Kylo Ren than Adam – and it reaches down inside of her, grabs her organs, and gives them all a shake. She's shy about sharing her opinion with him. She called up John right after reading the script for IX for the first time – they talked for hours about it. She doesn't even have the confidence to tell Adam if she did or didn't like it. It's just too complicated.

 

He senses her hesitation: “You never told me what you thought about the last one. What you _really_ thought. I didn't find out until I read between the lines in your interviews.”

 

Does he watch all of her interviews? She watches his. She imagines him sneaking outside to pull up Youtube on his phone, taking off his gloves so he can put in the earbuds. Typing her name into the search bar, sorting by most recent to find the ones he hasn't seen yet. Scrolling down to the one where she made the cute smile that he really liked. Then watching the one where she talked about how great it was being able to work with him so much this time around. Did he read between the lines in that one?

 

“I won't take it personally,” he adds. He's more sensitive about perceptions of Kylo Ren than he likes to let on. But they're all the same – protective of their characters.

 

“The last one had problems,” she says carefully.

 

“I agree.”

 

She relaxes and hopes he catches her meaning when she says with observant eyes: “It also had its moments.” Daisy still doesn't feel like _The Last Jedi_ is quite right, even after seeing the finished product, but the two of them are electric onscreen together – there's no question of that. Their coordinated team-up fight has been heralded as one of the best scenes in the entire franchise – even by people who _didn't_ like the movie - and for many fans, Rey's moments with Kylo and the struggle between them is the highlight. It's not hard to understand why - even watching through her fingers, contending with the unpleasantness of viewing her own performance, she could see that much. There are plenty of stunning visuals but the intimate connection explored between Rey and Kylo is really the beating heart of it. That's where all the excitement is.

 

She hadn't felt good about _The Last Jedi_ , going into training and filming. She wanted JJ back, she wanted John. She wanted more for Rey. And it wasn't that she didn't want to work with Adam...But she couldn't help but feel that it wouldn't be fun and comfortable the way it had been before. She had been right.

 

Daisy hadn't doubted her own talent, or work ethic. She knew she had proven herself in _The Force Awakens_. But Adam, Serious Actor TM, intimidated her. (And still does. He's coming off films with Scorsese and Soderbergh and Terry Gilliam. And _Julliard_! He works so hard, gives so much, _cares_ so much.) She had already seen him at work on _The Force Awakens,_ of course – his quiet intensity and drive and focus. It had been an experience for her - the interrogation scene, the lightsaber battle in the snowy forest. He taught her things. He allowed her to teach herself things. He understood what she needed in an almost unsettling way. She wasn't sure she was up for months of that on _The Last Jedi_ set, though...

 

When they were training for the throne room fight – just at the gym, practicing their lightsaber thrusts and swings – she had tried to catch his eye across the mats, to exchange a self-deprecating smile. But he acted like she wasn't even there. It wasn't an auspicious beginning to all the time they would be spending together filming, many of those scenes just the two of them. She and John would have been cracking jokes, hitting each other over the head with the props, giving each other a hard time about how stupid they looked and how slow they were learning. Adam didn't care if she was in the room or not, didn't even notice.

 

Every time she looked over he was in deep concentration, thrashing the training sword around with those massive arms of his.

 

Daisy snaps back. He's still waiting to hear what she thinks about “Black Diamond”. One of Kylo's first scenes is a vision that Rey has of the two of them kissing. It's only the beginning of what's in store for their relationship. Is that why he's asking? Is that why he really wants to know?

 

“It'll never be the movie it could have been if Carrie was still around,” she answers safely, breaking free from him and fleeing for the security of her room.

 

*/*/*

 

Daisy kicks off her shoes and throws herself onto the bed. _She wasn't ready to see him._ She stays in to avoid any chance of seeing him again – especially out with his wife - and orders room service and watches Netflix on her laptop. She takes a shower she doesn't need to take, hotter than she usually likes, and thinks back on a year and a half before.

 

Adam came out to Skellig Michael to film with her on the last movie. Rian always insisted that they were together when they filmed the “Force Skype” scenes – and looking at the end product, he was right to do so. Beforehand, she hadn't felt like it was necessary, it was even a little insulting. But it was so much easier to say those lines when she could see Kylo's face and hear his voice responding to her. She even changed a few of her acting choices when she saw what Rey would be seeing in that moment.

 

It was a skeleton crew out there – to protect the landscape. She and Adam spent a lot of time sitting in their chairs near the simplified craft services, waiting for the weather to cooperate and hoping the puffins wouldn't shit on them. One day he asked her point-blank and out of nowhere if she thought they had gotten off on the wrong foot. “Sometimes, I feel...maybe you don't like me,” he had said, without showing any particular emotion. He added quickly: “I'm not trying to put you on the spot.”

 

The bluntness of the question offended her British sensibilities, but more so she felt indignant because _how dare he think that she didn't like him_ , when she felt that she had been reaching out in friendship all this time and been rebuffed? He had been stiff, unwelcoming, uninterested. Adequately nice, of course, but fundamentally unrerceptive.

 

“It's OK if you don't. Plenty of people don't like me, I'm sure.”

 

The skies opened up with the necessary rain and Rian called them over before she had a chance to respond. Her next line was to call him a “Murderous snake” and it felt just about right. Rian liked the delivery and told her he was going to start calling her “One-Take Ridley”, though naturally they did a few more takes just in case. Adam seemed to realize he had upset her, but the energy between them worked perfectly for the scene and he played off of it. That only annoyed her even more.

 

Rian nodded his head from behind the camera, pleased, and dismissed them.

 

“I've made you angry,” Adam said, running to catch up to her as she speed-walked away. “I didn't mean to.” They didn't make it all the way back to their chairs under the tent. She longed for the coat she had left over there, but stopped in a nook that had an incredible view looking out across the ocean, and plenty of privacy from the crew.

 

“I'm just not sure how you got the impression that I didn't like you. I've felt this whole time like...” She wasn't looking at him, she studied the horizon, the rays that were breaking through the clouds and dancing on the water. It was as if they really were on some other world.

 

He gave her a second to complete her sentence, but she never did. He prompted her with a hint of agitation: “Like...?”

 

She turned to him: “Like you didn't like _me_.”

 

He frowned, a minute furrow of his brow that at the time had made her think of Kylo Ren in his deepest moments of inner conflict but now she knows only as _Adam_ 's face, Adam's expressions.

 

“If I ever gave you that impression,” he took a deep breath, “it was because I was jealous.”

 

It was so unexpected that she couldn't school her features into anything else but shock. Her wide eyes took him in. But this time Adam looked away, towards the low-hanging sun and the almost religious explosion of light out of a fractured cloud. “I've seen the way you are with everybody else. You're different with me. I just figured...you didn't like me very much. Which, is fine, of course. And I know you don't _hate_ me. But I just wanted to make sure that I hadn't _done_ anything...”

 

“It might not be what you think.” Daisy retorted, sensitive to the accusation that she was somehow being unfair. But she realized that carried an implication and hastily added: “What I mean is, that goes both ways, you know?”

 

“What does?”

 

“Overtures of friendship.”

 

A look of realization crossed his face. Then it went a little stern: “I'm not like John, or Mark, or-”

 

“I know,” she replied, a little too earnestly.

 

And that's really what it was coming down to: differences in personality. They just didn't... _mesh well_. Not the way Daisy meshed with her friends on set. They had become proficient in misreading each others' signals, and had built entire networks of assumptions based on false impressions. They were opposites – but in a way that didn't fit together like puzzle pieces. In a way that was like water and oil.

 

There was an ongoing tension between what she expected from him and who he really was – between the type of attention and return she was used to getting, and what he was giving to her. She wasn't used to being forced this close with someone who didn't tick the way she ticked.

 

She knew she probably had, in some sense, rejected him - because of how he intimidated her. It wasn't that she felt like he didn't respect her as an actor, but it was hard to blow off steam with someone you felt evaluated you. With someone who helped create that steam. He didn't show her his sillier side. So she didn't show him hers.

 

“I like you,” he said, very simply, interrupting the surging stream of her thoughts and giving her a signal she couldn't get wrong.

 

She smiled, after a second of surprised hesitation: “I like you too.”

 

She was no longer One-Take Ridley after that: “You still hate him in this one, remember?” Rian reminded her.

 


	2. Actors, people

JJ sits them next to each other at the table read. They both have Starbucks and are holding their heads up with their hands. Daisy wishes she had a cocktail instead – her heart rate is already elevated. She'll calm down eventually. But it would be easier if he was on the other side of the room.

 

“I see you washed the blood off,” Adam says, indicating the script lying in front of her.

 

She smiles into her knuckles. “I did.”

 

“Your surgery won't leave any scars, I hope?”

 

He's thinking about her body, and she feels a slight blush rosying her cheeks. “No.”

 

The read-through goes well. She's got a lot of work left to do, though – a few scenes in particular. She understands Rey's feelings towards Kylo, but not how express those feelings while balancing every single complication on her nose at the same time. JJ told her about Rey: “Your heart's all in. Your mind, not quite.” Rey's still holding something back from Kylo, still wondering what her life might look like if she makes different choices.

 

They all clap and smile and picture the credits rolling while Mark hums a few bars of the theme. Adam checks his phone and disappears, and Daisy finally gets her cocktail when she goes out for lunch and drinks with a few other members of the cast. They get to talking (very quietly) about what scene will be hardest on them to perform, but Daisy is thinking back again to _The Last Jedi_ and the scene that took the most from her then. Physically, of course, it was the choreographed fight with the guards. But emotionally, it was the reveal of the truth about Rey's parents. It had to be internal and external at the same time – reacting to Kylo, reacting to what was going on inside Rey's head, pulling on her memories but also debating present actions. The hand Kylo is holding out to her, it's looming over her, eclipsing her thoughts. Rey is forced to make difficult choices at nearly every turn, but this is the first time she faces a dilemma between right and wrong that would change the course of her life, and she is tempted to do the wrong thing. It's the first time her head and her heart aren't in the same place. Even her heart is split.

 

The reveal was, as Rian liked to put it, the hardest thing Rey could hear in that moment. But it was also freeing, in a way. “A lot of what Kylo says here is right,” Rian told her. “He's insightful about you. You're balancing knowing that and _wanting_ to trust him with caution, with Luke whispering in your ear.”

 

There were all kinds of sparks going on in the background, and the pyrotechnics had to be reset. Adam went off by himself to stay in character, but it was taking longer than expected and Daisy eventually followed to bug him after getting bored with her phone. There had been a long break after Skellig Michael while the shooting in Dubrovnik took place and she and Adam had gone home for a few weeks before they started work at Pinewood in London. She thought things would be different after they had broken the ice that day but he had come back rigid and unapproachable. Not rude – never _rude_ , just...faraway. It had been over a week and it was getting under her skin.

 

“In Ireland you said you liked me. Do you not like me in London?” She chased the question with an encouraging little smile, fighting the urge in herself to be more hostile.

 

He was leaning against the wall – a fake spaceship wall – and his body tensed. She heard him audibly exhale: “I'm sorry.” It wasn't as heartfelt as she had been hoping for – as she had been expecting. He wasn't groveling.

 

“Am I doing something wrong? Do you think I'm not getting there?” She knows she's intentionally provoking him to either praise or condemn her acting, which means she'll either feel better or feel justified to be angry with him. She needs her rationalizations to catch up with her feelings.

 

“What?” He straightened up, staring at her. “What do you mean?”

 

“I've always felt like...” She couldn't believe she was saying this to him but he had a way now of extracting the words out of her without even trying, “Like you don't think I'm serious enough. Like my techniques aren't good enough.”

 

He moved to run his hand through his hair and then seemed to remember that he probably shouldn't, that it was arranged the way it was meant to be arranged for the scene. (A hair artist was constantly coming over to fix it and sometimes Daisy helped.) He lowered his hand awkwardly down to his side. “Daisy, you couldn't be more wrong. I'm in awe of you.”

 

She lifted her eyes, and it did occur to her even in that moment that it was exactly the way she had practiced for Rey in the very scene they were working on, when Kylo tells her that she's nothing, but not to him. She blinked. She felt the words tingling in her fingers and toes. JJ had said, “I know we made the right decision: you _are_ Rey”, and John and Mark and Carrie had all told her she was wonderful. It meant so much coming from them but Adam's praise meant something else entirely.

 

Adam continued, marching right over her stunned silence: “I feel lucky to get to watch you acting the hell out of this part. And I feel lucky to get to be with Rey when she's like this, when she's vulnerable and open, and showing this side of herself that she never shows anyone else.”

 

Rian's assistant called them over while Daisy was still gaping at Adam and trying to formulate a coherent reply. Adam waved an apologetic hand at the crew and said he needed a minute. He gave Daisy a glance of reproach as he walked off to find some privacy in another corner of the room.

 

“More restraint,” Rian told her after the first take, when everything was reset and they were ready to film again. She knew what he was talking about: Rey was just about in love with Kylo, but it wasn't meant to be broadcast plainly to the entire galaxy.

 

*/*/*

 

Daisy runs into Adam and his wife at the airport the following day. She had a few things to take care before leaving town after the table read and expected Adam to be gone already, but there he is, buried in a book. It's all by chance - chance that he's sitting facing the walkway, chance that their gates are in the same terminal, chance that she's looking to the side rather than directly ahead as she passes by. (Or maybe she had been looking for him...the way one does.) The screen indicates his flight is delayed. Hers is on time, but she's more than comfortably early for it. She stops in front of his chair and waits for him to look up. Naturally he expects it to be a fan who has recognized him under the facial hair and cap, and she loves his askew and candid half-smile when he realizes that it's her.

 

She makes the proper greetings with Adam's wife, who is so lovely and pleasant that Daisy can barely stand the guilt of being in the same room as her, and then Daisy and Adam go off to kill time together at a blissfully underpatronized deli a little further down the terminal while Joanne finishes a phone call.

 

“The read through went well,” she says conversationally, choosing a secluded table after they've purchased their sandwiches. He bought a peanut butter and jelly and he breaks off a piece to give to her, part of a long-running campaign to convince her that it's not just for Americans and not just for kids.

 

“Yeah, I think it did.”

 

She smacks a little, delighted, on the peanut butter and smiles at his expectant look. “I never said they were bad,” she protests.

 

It reminds her, inevitably, of the day off they both had in London during the filming of the last one. (Everything reminds her of that day.) She rented a tiny car that could barely contain his height and invited him to head out into the country with her to have lunch in a village pub. Adam had mentioned wanting to see a quaint English village and Daisy was ready to get away from Star-Warsville for a few hours while she had the chance. It all happened on a bit of a whim.

 

At the beginning it felt great, like they were finally friends now. He made good-humored fun of all the Britishisms on the menu (and off the menu, like Daisy's sister, whose name was Poppy) and the fact that the other patrons vaguely knew who they were but didn't care. He ordered fish & chips even though she told him to try something more adventurous, and she stole his chips. He hesitantly wiped ketchup from the edge of her mouth. They got lost and flipped coins at forks to decide which way to go. One road ended up being not a road at all but a driveway for a farm, and the farm had a little shop. Daisy petted a goat and Adam took a picture, and she bought some rose-flavored jelly and tasted it with her finger and he watched.

 

She confessed, buckling under the pressure of the silence and hypnotized into inhibition by an endless apple orchard: “I feel lucky too.” His head perked up. “It's a privilege getting to work with you. No one else could play Kylo Ren like you do. What you've created...” She shook her head. She struggled for the right words: “And I think you're making me a better actress. _I know it_. I've said this about you but not _to_ you: you couldn't be more generous as a collaborator in the work we do together. It's a-it's a _privilege,_ ” she finished weakly, eyes determinedly on the road.

 

They were stopped at an intersection. Adam reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist where she held the steering wheel. “Stop talking about me as a _scene partner_!” he pleaded.

 

He released his grip when they had the right-of-way. She was too busy trying to decipher what he had said to realize it was her to turn to go. The car behind them honked impatiently. The honking stressed her out, and she stepped on the gas only to realize that the car to their left had seized her delay as a chance for him to go. She slammed on the brakes and both she and Adam flew back against their seats.

 

“I'm sorry!” she nearly cried when they were finally through what was apparently rural England's busiest four-way-stop. “I almost got us _killed_!”

 

He sighed. “No, I'm sorry.”

 

They both entered a period of quiet contemplation. She thought she had figured out what he had meant: he wanted to hear what she thought about Adam Driver _the person_ , not Adam Driver the actor. But wasn't that all in there, in what she had said? Impressive, generous, someone who challenged her, _someone she wanted to be around_.

 

Heading back in that evening it was obvious that something had changed. This wasn't and had never been friendship – it was something else. And now they both knew it.

 

The day after they began filming Adam's side of their Force-connection scenes. Kylo's expressions of uncertainly and discovery and confusion – his desire to reach out - all reflected what Daisy was feeling inside. His shirtless scene didn't help. It all looks like sex onscreen: NC-17 hand touching, oiled shirtlessness, and coordinated sword battling. It's all uncomfortably and intensely intimate. The viewer feels like a voyeur.

 

She was glad when filming was over, except for that sliver of her that found it hard to say goodbye to him. She scheduled her ADR around when she knew he wouldn't be there, and then took a tropical vacation. (And spent most of it escaping even further into Netflix)

 

Nothing had happened, but _something_ had happened. Something had happened between them. She was all but certain he was experiencing the same thing. She still is...

 

They find they don't really have anything to say to each other about Episode IX. They find they don't really have much of an appetite either - at least not for their sandwiches. She breaks down, palm on her forehead pressing so hard it's turning white, staring directly down at the table and her uneaten lunch. In bewilderment she quietly cries: “You're not even close to my type!” How did she get to this place?

 

“Not here,” he says measuredly, understanding her completely and fixated on her the way he had been the whole time. God, the way those eyes look her over...She can _feel_ it. She's burning red hot.

 

Joanne comes over to get him. They had announced boarding for his flight but he and Daisy hadn't heard.

 

*/*/*

 

All she's thinking about is the fact that his wife won't be with him when they're filming together in New Zealand. It's only a few months away. It's only a few months away _and his wife won't be with him_.

 

It's the longest flight of her life. She can't sleep and the in-flight movies aren't holding her attention. She's remembering back to the publicity tour for _The Last Jedi_. Adam wasn't around for most of it but there was _Jimmy Kimmel_ and the premiere and a few other events when they saw each other. They were on the same floor then, too, one of those times. But he was there alone.

 

One night, she was out on her balcony. It was December, of course, but not cold. She was keenly aware of the fact that he was only a few rooms down, but not that he was several balconies down, standing outside just like she was, looking at the city lights in 11PM darkness. And it was thinking of him, not his movement in the periphery of her vision, that caused her to peek over and see him there.

 

“You look sad,” she called over to him, noticing the way he was leaning on the railing, his hands clasped in front of him.

 

“I miss my dog,” he shouted back, smiling as he caught sight of her.

 

She smiled. “I miss my dog too.”

 

“Nightcap?”

 

The wind came and stole away her reply but they eventually were able to communicate enough to agree to meet downstairs in the hotel bar.

 

She put on some make up, and then wiped it off. She changed clothes twice – more worried about perceptions that she was trying to look nice than how nice she actually looked. (While still, of course, trying to look somewhat nice.) He already had a booth for them when she finally got down there. He had had his choice of spots – the bar (more of a lounge, really) was not busy. Still, they were treated to live music - an older man who played jazz piano like he had twelve fingers. It was dark. Cozy. Intimate. The music wasn't soft and background – it was fierce and vivid and demanding and did not let her relax. The twinkling Christmas lights gave everything a soft glow.

 

He had ordered a drink for her – by now he knew what she always ended up picking. She had tended bar once upon a time and was particular. “If you don't want it, I'll drink it,” he assured her, after seeing her surprise. But it was what she wanted. The drinks arrived and they clinked glasses to Moose and Muffin, their beloved better halves. He confessed that he never should have gotten a dog, because now he hated being away from him. Daisy confessed that she loved traveling for work and seeing new places but got terribly homesick.

 

They talked for a few hours, longer than either of them had intended, and only left when they did because the bar closed. Outside Adam's room they said goodnight, and he didn't invite her inside. As much as she wanted to go in there, it said everything that he couldn't allow it to happen, not even to finish their conversation about his work on _Logan Lucky_ over the minibar M&Ms they had both been vocally craving for nearly two hours. He had carefully nursed his drinks, she noticed. He hadn't let himself get drunk.

 

That was the last time they had been alone together, before the day before the table read.

 

All those months she had been trying not to think about him.

 


	3. The Dance

She returns home with a nervous energy that she tries to channel into her craft, but it's not exactly a distraction: when you're dieting you don't cook to keep yourself busy. The one thing that might possibly offer what she needs is her semi-casual/semi-serious boyfriend. They have been seeing each other for a while – when they can. Neither one of them has made the relationship a particular priority but they've had conversations about possibly committing more in the future...But Daisy cuts him loose the first chance she has to do it person. There's no point in dragging it out any longer. It's not because she has any expectations about what might happen when she and Adam are reunited, when they'll be thrown together in the cloistered crucible of the set without any outside distractions and a dwindling few remaining illusions of platonic friendship. She hasn't allowed herself to expect anything. It's because her heart isn't in it (and never was) and that's not fair to him. He's surprised and upset – maybe he'll realize someday that it was a mercy.

 

Daisy is the type of person who falls in love. She loves, she hopes. She lets herself think, “Maybe he's the one.” She doesn't hold back. But those relationships in her past have always looked the same: the same kind of guy, more or less, whom she met in more or less the same way. Safe guys – mates of mates and friends from school. Men exactly her age, at the same stage in their lives. _Single men_. Men who think like she does and who react and behave the way she expects them to. It's just like she had said to Adam at the airport – he isn't even close to her type. It's beyond that – he stands in opposition to her type. Their graceless acquaintanceship is a floundering mess of chafing each other and false starts and abrupt confessions. They don't make sense. What is she doing feeling this way? All of her worse instincts are prevailing, all of her common sense is quiet.

 

She can't escape him when her most constant of companions – her mobile – torments her with phone calls that do not come and phone calls she's too afraid to make. Daisy builds up and then loses the courage to call Adam 100 times. She has excuses ready – discussion of their shared scenes in IX, and she's consulted him before about auditions and other non- _Star Wars_ but work-related topics. But she can't do it. He texts her on her birthday – a sterile message that doesn't really say anything at all. Her heart gives a big thump, realizing he knows when her birthday is, that he took the time to think about her and tell her that he was thinking about her and wishing her well. _But she wants him to call_. She wants that moment, that attention. She wants to hear his voice.

 

Her agitated preoccupation unlocks memories she had forgotten from their time together on _The Force Awakens_. It took them days and days to film their duel in the forest. It was just a lot set – fake trees, fake snow, a painted backdrop and a little bit of blue screen. But even fake sets can be beautiful, magical. There are photos of her taken by the on-set documentarians, smiling at the synthetic snowfall and staring delighted into the illusory woods. It felt like she was inside a fairy tale. The set did half of her work for her.

 

She was put off by Adam's reserve during the filming of that section. She thought they had established a friendly rapport during pre-production and their work together on the interrogation scene, but this man was quiet, standoffish, disinterested in her - not patient and encouraging. She wished he would stop being such a goddamn professional for five minutes and just _talk_ to her.

 

He had been quiet while they filmed in the Forest of Dean - the scene between them on the planet Takodana. But he had been wearing the Kylo Ren mask, so she hadn't expected much interaction then. She _had_ wondered what was going on behind the mask – what his expression was, what he was choosing not to say because it would be muffled and hard to hear. She had forgotten about that curiosity she felt...

 

He was technical – professional – on those days too, in _that_ forest. Concerned with staging, with when and how to touch her. He caught her in his arms and carried her in that scene. They filmed it dozens of times - JJ knew exactly what he wanted it to look like and they kept going until he got what he wanted. She thought Adam's coldness was the mask, and the time constraints that came from filming in the field. But that earlier rapport had apparently been only her imagination - that much was confirmed by the snow scenes. Adam kept to himself. He didn't smile. He listened to JJ and only occasionally glanced at her. Everyone respected how he remained in character between takes but it felt _personal,_ like she was the only one he was keeping at a distance.

 

He looked every bit as tortured as Kylo was supposed to be – wounded, going mad from grief and guilt and disappointment, that gleam of Dark Side in his eye, in his voice. She was frustrated with him as a person but couldn't knock a single thing about his performance or what he gave her when the camera was rolling. It wowed her, and still does. Rey wants to conquer this monster – she wants him at her feet. She hates him for what he did to Han Solo, for hurting Finn. But there's that fascination. There's that part of her that doesn't want to kill this dark prince. There's a part of her that wants to discover him, to dive in and look around, to taste what he has to offer her. She can't ignore that he's making her _feel_ something.

 

It wouldn't be the only time Daisy got confused about where Rey ended and where she began.

 

*/*/*

 

She has already done over a week of filming in New Zealand when Adam flies out for his scenes. Up to this point they've been training independently for their lightsaber fight. It'll be more complicated than any of her duels so far because neither Rey nor Kylo has any desire to hurt the other. It's supposed to be elegant and light-footed – _restrained_ \- much more of a dance than anything prior throughout the franchise. Their first day of work is spent at the gym, putting their two halves together. JJ steps in a couple of times to check on their progress. He whispers with the coordinator and Daisy's sure he's saying that it's stilted and unnatural and unacceptable. The harder they try, the worse it seems to go.

 

They haven't been alone yet. Adam arrived the day before but they have both been surrounded by crew the entire time. More than once she tried to carve out a moment to themselves, but he sidestepped them all. Maybe it's for the best – she's not sure what she would have said. She just craved to _be_ with him – even if they were only standing around making awkward chitchat. After the airport, she had allowed herself to hope that...But Adam is quiet, resistant. There's a warmth in his eyes but not in his manner, nothing to indicate he's dying to get her alone.

 

The trainer finds her and Adam practicing independently and ushers them together. “Kylo is trained, Rey is not,” he says. “Rey learns from Kylo, like she has been doing all along. Her movements are echoes of his – variations that reflect her familiarity with the staff, her personal fire, and a little bit, her femininity. Daisy, you have to watch Adam. You have to see how he moves. What does Rey see? That will influence how _she_ moves, how she responds with her own motion.”

 

Daisy nods, with a sigh.

 

“Adam, there is no point in continuing to master the technical aspects of the swordplay by yourself anymore. Kylo is not trying to win. He wants it to go on. He's courting.”

 

“It's a dance,” Daisy and Adam both parrot back to him in unison. They had heard him say it enough times.

 

He chuckles and then backs away off the mat. “From the top.”

 

“What's this guy's deal, does he write poetry on the weekends or something?” Daisy jokes as she and Adam get into position.

 

Adam laughs, apparently harder than he had expected to. They share a smile.

 

She knows this scene will beautiful onscreen. Kylo's swings are slow, allowing Rey to easily block them. They take turns advancing on each other while the other allows it to happen, secretly cherishing those moments when they converge. At one point, their lightsabers are pressed against each other and Rey is bending back, trying to hold her own and losing in a battle of brute strength. She's bathed in purple light (according to the script – right now she's bathed in desaturating gymnasium fluorescence), with Kylo leaning over her and pushing down just enough so that she can't break free. Daisy is still practicing the mechanics of the fight, and isn't in-character. Adam isn't acting either, he's leaning over her and it's _them_ – not Rey and Kylo, but _Daisy and Adam_.

 

They stare into each others' eyes (for longer than they have been instructed to, but she's not really thinking about the instructions anymore) and she forgets that she's meant to be exerting back at him with her saber. Adam's strength overwhelms her and she starts to fall but he catches her before she's off her feet.

 

She scratches her head and looks away. Adam clears his throat and backs off.

 

The trainer shakes his head at them. “Lunch!” (It's only 10:45.)

 

Daisy watches Adam as he lays his prop sword down by the other supplies, picks up his phone, and consults the trainer about what seems to be a brief and simple question. She has carefully admitted certain things to herself about her feelings for Adam...that she feels a certain attraction to him, that she enjoys his company, that they've overcome a somewhat rocky start to have what might even at this point be called a special connection. These feelings are...acceptable. The feeling of wanting him for herself is not acceptable, and she has been actively fighting it, _actively_ trying to convince herself that it's not what she wants, not what she feels, not what she's trying to do.

 

It would be a lot easier to convince herself of that if she could leave him alone. If she could stop thinking about him for long enough to have an intelligible thought about something – _anything_ – else.

 

She should be backing off – giving him the space he seems to be asking for. But he's shy, reserved – unforthcoming with important truths. And _she needs to know._ She needs to know how he really feels. In order to know that, she has to force the moment. And something has got to give – or else there is going to be a rot at the center of their scenes together that everyone is going to able to perceive one way or another onscreen. She can't allow that.

 

After a second of indecision, Daisy chases Adam down as he's headed for the cafeteria and blocks his way. “Do you not like me in New Zealand?” she asks, crossing her arms. She knows why he's pushing her away and why it's right but her heart revolts.

 

“Daisy...”

 

“It's all right, I understand what's going on. And you don't owe me anything. But the work is suffering for it.”

 

He does that thing with his eyes – they run her over. “So what you're saying is...for the sake of work we should...” If they had been alone, they might have kissed – or, at least, she's left to wonder as much. He has advanced on her crossed arms and scowling face, and now towers only a few inches away from her. She doesn't retreat, and this time, he doesn't either.

 

But they are not alone: the building is crawling with crew, most of whom aren't taking their lunch break at 10:45. Fortunately none of them are in this particular hallway at this particular moment.

 

The expression on his face is split between a sort of wincing pain and the aloofness of one calculating a difficult maths sum. He turns his back on her suddenly, and walks away. After a second she follows, hesitantly - unsure of what _he_ wants her to do...and then finds herself being yanked into a small supply closet. He pulls the door closed, unwisely, before they have found the switch for the interior light. Giving up after struggling for a few seconds, they turn their exploratory fingers on each other instead. It's nearly pitch black, with only a single band of illumination at their ankles. His hand searches up her chest and neck to find her cheek and he holds her head in place while he bends his lips down to hers.

 

“I didn't even make it one day,” he remarks quietly, breathless after he withdraws from her mouth. She feels him hang his head, just a little. Feverish elbows have knocked toilet paper and spray bottles to the ground so that they can barely move their feet without stepping on something. She releases his hair out of her grip and lets her hand slide down to his chest. They're both sweaty already from the strains of training – neither of them is at their most presentable but it doesn't matter. Her fingers enjoy the faint shape of his musculature through the lightweight fabric of his workout shirt.

 

“I felt something for you that first day,” he says desperately, breathing into her ear, and it sends shudders down her spine. “The first time I saw you.” She can feel the release in him, the pleasure and relief of confessing that particular truth. His desire for her to know it. “I've never felt like that before. I've been resisting it this whole time. Or _failing to_ , more accurately,” he adds, with bitter amusement.

 

Daisy recalls their first read together with all the practice of having recalled it as regularly as she has. Adam already had the part, she was still in the auditioning process, though she knows now that they were pretty much decided. She hadn't been familiar with him from anything else and was surprised by his face when she looked him up before the chemistry test. An interesting face – not conventionally handsome. Not _expected_. But it casts a spell once you submit yourself to it. She knows that now.

 

The chemistry test went well. She knows from hearing about it afterwards that JJ and Kathleen were pleased, but even Daisy herself leaving that day felt confident about what had transpired, about what she and Adam had produced together. This moment between them did feel like it was paying off something that had started that day. She has been so muddled by her reactions to him this entire time, these four or so years. It all seems so clear now.

 

Carrie had warned her about this. Her quote warning Daisy not to burn through the crew “like wildfire” had become a little too public, but also more privately Carrie had told her not to fall for any of them. “Just don't,” she had said. _Especially not the ones that are married. Especially not the other leads._

 

Shit.

 

Adam kisses her again, and he's so strong and so tall that he lifts her off the ground to get the angle he wants using only a single arm wrapped around her back. Her arms wind around his neck and he wants to push her against the wall for more leverage but there's no wall. More things tumble off the shelves and they laugh against each others' mouths, heat radiating off of them.

 

His lips overwhelm her like waves. They pull away to pant but their lips don't quite let go at first.

 

“We've got to get out of here. I want to look at you,” she says.

 

*/*/*

 

They don't know where they are going or what they are doing, only that it apparently isn't going to happen: JJ calls out to them, and they turn to see him running over. He wants to eat lunch with them and talk over a few things, and they can't exactly say no to the director.

 

Daisy and Adam drop back and let JJ walk ahead while they rearrange their clothes and hair into something less suggestive.

 

“How do I look?” she whispers.

 

He answers her sincerely, with eyes that are eating her up: “Gorgeous.”

 

She smiles, almost giggles. “That's not what I mean.”

 

“You're flushed and your lips are really red.” He stares at her lips, ready to kiss them again and redden them some more.

 

“Yeah, that's how I feel like I look,” she sighs.

 

If JJ notices anything is off, he doesn't mention it. Naturally, he's worried about how the duel is coming along. “It's the centerpiece of the second act. If it comes off right, that whole section of the story will too.” They offer him assurances that they understand. Adam says, “I think we've worked out some of the kinks” with a straight face. He's a better actor than her in this context – he's focused, thoughtful, collected. Her body is still humming. She's seeing stars. She's floating in the clouds.

 

The truth is, they are not much better when they return to working on the duel. The work still suffers – they've traded old “kinks” for new ones. She keeps bursting into laughter. When she laughs, he does too, and his laugh is infectious, feeding back into her again. Nothing makes her happier than seeing his serious expression melt into a smile. Their beleaguered trainer wants to get annoyed with them but can't quite hate the fun they're having. They are successful for short stretches. It's enough progress to begin filming.

 

*/*/*

 

Daisy has spent the afternoon and evening telling herself that just because they had a snog in a closet like two Year 10s doesn't mean anything else is going to happen. Adam is a good person. _Kind_. He loves his wife and values the commitment he made to her her. He's prudent and methodical. He doesn't take things on or throw them off lightly or impulsively. His actions are invested with care, his intentions have integrity.

 

His careful rejection of her so far only makes her want him more.

 

Daisy has never felt this conflicted about anything before. Is a little bit of happiness and pleasure worth all the ripples of misery and trouble it will create? An affair – the word makes her feel sick – has far-reaching consequences.

 

She takes her time getting ready for bed, hoping he might call or come by. Her teeth have never been so squeaky clean – she must have brushed them for 10 minutes. She won't call him. She has to finally leave it up to him to make the next move. He knows where she stands – if he can still feel the ghost of her hands on his body the way she can feel his then he should know exactly what she wants.

 

And if he doesn't call...she'll be devastated, but not mad.

 

*/*/*

 

He does call.

 

Her cell phone rings at 1AM local time. “I need this sleep,” she answers, playfully irritated.

 

“I don't know about you, but I haven't slept at all.”

 

“...No. I haven't either.”

 

She invites him over to her room. They don't think anyone saw him, but they'll never be sure.

 

He looks her over in her fuzzy pajamas and shakes his head a little bit.

 

“What?”

 

“You're adorable.”

 

She smiles shyly, blushes. “I thought I was gorgeous.”

 

“You're gorgeous too.”

 

He sits down next to her on the bed, staring at his feet. “I wanted really hard,” he begins, “not to be another Hollywood cliché. I never thought I would be the kind of person who could cause this much hurt. I-”

 

Daisy catches his hand and holds it in her lap. “I know. I know what you're feeling. I understand all of it.”

 

They're closer than they should be if they're just going to talk, which becomes all the more apparent as their eyes meet. “I've never felt like this before,” is all she tells him. She hopes that carries all the weight of the words she isn't ready to say. He doesn't say the same back to her, but she sees it in his eyes. Maybe he came over just to talk, maybe not. He kisses her, whatever else he might have planned to say evaporating in his desire.

 

Afterwards, they don't fall asleep. She nestles herself in the embrace of his extended arm and he twirls her hair around one of his fingers. For a long time they don't speak. They've known four years of uncomfortable silences – this is their first comfortable one.

 

*/*/*

 

He leaves before morning, to sleep, shower, and dress in his own space. The daylight burns away the afterglow, and the sins of the night before are a little more haunting under the sun. They're side-by-side in the makeup trailer together, and Adam looks haggard and harrowed.

 

“The jet lag is terrible, isn't it?” the observant-but-polite makeup artist says to him as she applies foundation.

 

He and Daisy exchange guilty looks in the mirror.

 

She departs to ask JJ a question about Kylo's scar and for the moment Adam and Daisy have the trailer to themselves.

 

“I still can't believe you've ever looked at me twice,” Adam confesses, leaning his head into his hand. “It was easier to feel this way about you when I thought you were out of reach. When I thought I didn't have a chance so it wasn't even worth thinking about.”

 

She feels a growing alarm in the pit of her stomach. She stops watching him in the mirror and turns to look at him face-to-face.

 

He continues: “I'm sorry. I can't do this to Joanne. _I'm so sorry, Daisy_. But this can't happen.” He shakes his head and balls up a fist of helpless, impotent frustration. “You know – _you must know_ , I know you do – that if it weren't for Joanne...”

 

Daisy feels inevitable tears stinging in her eyes. She's nodding at Adam, trying to reassure him that she understands – possibly even agrees – but she knows how pitiful she must look - she can see it reflected in his eyes. He reaches out suddenly to take her hand in sympathy, and he interlocks their fingers and squeezes tightly. She tries to blink back her tears but fresh ones come.

 

“I never should have let it get this far. I was weak and selfish and stupid. You should hate me.”

 

“I don't hate you.” And Daisy knows that she is at least as responsible as he is.

 

The timing of the makeup artist's return could have been worse but definitely could have been better. Adam drops her hand, which hurts Daisy worse than it should. The makeup artist takes in the atmosphere between them and Daisy's smeared mascara and apologizes, asking if she should leave. They tell her to stay, and Daisy makes up a quick lie about having received some bad news about a friend.

 


	4. Guilt, love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been spoiled rotten by all of you. Thank you for all the encouragement and the support for this story and for me, it has been overwhelming in the best way. You have made it a pleasure to write for you. I hope you all enjoy the final chapter.

Later, Adam apologizes for his timing. It's true – he could have at least waited until her makeup had dried so that it didn't all have to be redone. He felt like he owed it to her to tell her right away – the first chance he had. And she understands that: it's not as if he could have held off until filming was over – they have weeks left in the field and still plenty left after that at the studio in London. There was no good time to do it. She hadn't made any comments about his choice of when to tell her, but he must have gotten a read off of her that she was concerned the work would suffer once more.

 

It doesn't, though. They finish the duel and JJ is positively gleeful about how it has turned out.

 

The resistance and the First Order have a skirmish on this New Zealand-looking planet in the middle of the film. Daisy has already completed all of her scenes that take place here so she's dismissed until production shifts to Mexico. It's only a short break - Oscar and some of the others are staying but Daisy needs the break – needs to get away - so she takes it. She makes sure the last time she sees Adam is in public and they exchange awkward goodbyes and lingering, uncertain looks in front of everyone. When he hugs her, it's warm and full and tight, and her body distinguishes the points of contact and his immense hands. She thinks he smells her hair. She wants to say, “You don't get to do that,” but she's so glad that he did.

 

“ _Hasta la vista_ , baby” John says to make her laugh, pushing her into the taxi. They watched _Terminator_ together after one of the conventions they went to last year. He knows her well enough to see that she's emotional, but he does the right thing and doesn't ask why.

 

Adam has been pulled into a conversation but he spares the cab a furtive glance as it drives away.

 

*/*/*

 

She has a mantra: “We don't make sense.” _We don't make sense_ , so it's okay. She repeats it to herself, when she starts getting that creeping feeling that she has lost something that can never be replaced. _We don't make sense_ , so it's not worth wasting a whole lot of heartbreak on something that never would have worked out anyway. It would have failed - died a depressing little death - after all that damage was already done, so wasn't this better? Did she and Adam really have something to build a whole life together on? And if not, then of course they couldn't compromise his marriage – anymore than they already had – for something that had no longevity, no endurance. For something that might very well just be a flash in the pan, a flare up of passion that would fade out just as fast.

 

Of course there's a niggling voice in the back of her mind, reminding her that there were times, like when they were talking about being homesick for their dogs, that she felt...And it hadn't just burst into being, had it, on a lonely set after too much to drink? _Four years_ they had been dancing around it.

 

But then she shakes her head and says it again: _we don't make sense_.

 

She goes for a quick photoshoot and an interview with _Elle_ during the break, and it does her good to see the photos afterwards – she has poise, dignity, professionalism. That young woman in the photos looks like she knows what she's doing. Like she's got it all figured out. Like she didn't have sex with a married co-star, like she's not still aching for him.

 

Mexico comes in the blink of an eye. These scenes are from the first part of the film, and she's grateful she'll have a little more time before she has to look Ben Solo in the eye and tell him that she loves him. Kylo never steps foot on this planet but Rey's vision takes place here, which means she will be seeing Adam, if only for a day. She has a chance to get into the groove of filming again before he arrives, but it's not enough time to not feel a thundering in her chest. Will it ever be easy to see him? Will she ever feel ready?

 

During the table read, JJ described a little of what he had in mind for the kiss, but Daisy and Adam haven't practiced it yet. (Unless their eighteen-hour affair counts as practice...) He doesn't give them any more guidance and essentially says, “Let's see what happens.” She was afraid he would want to go that way with this scene; for once she wishes he would draw them diagrams and move their arms into place and not leave any of it up to them.

 

There's an excitement among the crew, she can feel it. Everyone is ready for some kind of consummation of the intense sexual tension between Kylo Ren and Rey, even if it's only in Rey's head. “The Force knows what you really want,” JJ told her beforehand. “It's kind of nudging you with an elbow, telling you that it knows what's in the deepest darkest depths of your heart. This isn't the future. It's exposing what's inside you.”

 

The kiss needs to carry every ounce of Rey's forbidden and guilty longing. It does.

 

Adam paces severely as they wait for the shot to be ready – he's remote and withdrawn, introspective - but for once she is too. They've brought out huge fans powered by loud generators in order to give the kiss the full romantic, windblown treatment. Adam looks at her just before “Action” gets called with troubled, vivid eyes. His hair looks far more dramatic in the wind than hers does.

 

It's a cruel joke, really, that they have to do a scene like this together - at all, but especially so soon after...what happened. It's hard to stay in character as Rey knowing she's about to be kissing Adam again. Those lips and those hands on her again...

 

“Surprise her,” JJ had said, with a mischievous look in his eye. There's something all-too-canny about his insistence on capturing her candid reactions.

 

The take begins, and Kylo marches over to her, intent and confident. Rey takes a half-step behind her, no more, backing into the loose hand he is holding out. He leans down and in with that same determined forcefulness, but stays his mouth for one second, giving her the chance to pull away. Despite her defiant look, she doesn't. Then he kisses her with all the pent-up desire that has been building in every moment they've had together. But as JJ said, it's really Rey's pent-up desire, isn't it?

 

Adam has walked away, and is pacing again as if he's powering a circuit. Daisy wipes a thin coating of saliva off her lips with her index finger and turns her head to regard the crew. After seeing what they just saw, do any of them have any idea what's really going on? They all have the same amused, wide-eyed looks on their faces: _that was not a Star Wars kiss_. But they all liked it.

 

Adam gives her another look before the next take, this one more raw and pained. She's not mad at him for breaking things off – she's really not – but she does feel a moment's thrill at his anguish, at seeing him so disordered. Maybe she does feel a sliver of resentment – not a rational resentment, but the primal part of her that would lash out at anything that would wound her. Or maybe, selfishly, she's just glad to see that he still feels something for her, that same desperate need she felt from him from the first time they kissed. That he's hurting as much as she is.

 

Take after take . With a budget like this film has, they can go on forever, and it feels like they do. They make small variations, sometimes large ones. As Daisy had been afraid he would, JJ tells her to try being the initiator. She grips Kylo's collar and jerks his head down to hers hungrily.

 

Rey watches the kiss in her vision with the same kind of mesmerized horror that Daisy watches it in the dailies.

 

“They're really good,” JJ says, “They're great.” He says he doesn't know how he'll choose.

 

He shuffles through some of the other recordings and plays what they had filmed the day before – another part of Rey's vision. She's at a ball of sorts – in the fanciest dress, on the fanciest planet, at the fanciest of fancy events. Everything Rey has never experienced and probably never will. Daisy turns her head towards Adam to gauge his reaction but it doesn't require any investigation: he's openly admiring, downright distressed by her beauty.

 

*/*/*

 

She watches him for about 10 minutes before deciding to go over there. He's sitting at a picnic table, watching the sun go down. She had come outside to do the same after catching sight of the pink out her window. Being from England, the image of all those hues on the palm trees still gives her a little kick.

 

“I'm not trying to make this harder on you, so if you want me to go away, just say the word.” Daisy sits down across the table from him, leaning on her elbows.

 

He doesn't turn his eyes away from the sunset. “I don't want you to go.”

 

They continue to enjoy the view in companionable but restless silence. She's watching him more than the horizon. Eventually, Daisy feels compelled to speak: “So...that was hell,” she jokes mirthlessly.

 

He doesn't smile. “Yeah.” The one word is heavy with agreement and the weight of a full day of torture.

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“Please don't say that. I don't want you to feel sorry. And you don't have anything to apologize for.”

 

“That's not true. I'm as a culpable as you are. I see you racked with guilt and I know that it's my fault. I pushed and pushed. I had no mercy.”

 

He sighs. “I'm not racked with _guilt_.”

 

She turns her head sharply towards him, catching his intonation.

 

He continues: “I feel guilty, but..That's not the problem. This would all be so much easier if I didn't...”

 

“If you didn't...?” she whispers.

 

“If I didn't love you.”

 

Daisy hears her own intake of breath. Hoping he would say it is nothing compared to hearing it said. There's an unexpected chill on the breeze now that the sun is down but she only feels a warmth diffusing through her. She feels insubstantial, as if the breeze might blow her away, while at the same time grounded, connected with the Earth.

 

He shakes his head. “I shouldn't have said that.”

 

She doesn't hesitate: “I love you, too.”

 

He swallows, and then gives her the eye contact that she deserves. “It was only a few days, but I missed you.”

 

“I missed you too.”

 

“It might seem fast, but-”

 

“It doesn't seem fast,” she interrupts. “I think I loved you that day on Skellig Michael. Maybe even before.”

 

She wants to know when _he_ knew, and he tells her. A story about a quiet young man, who was feeling lonely on set, and how he turned a corner and came upon the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen, singing beautifully and dancing with her headphones on and her eyes closed.

 

“I remember that. I was so embarrassed. How long did you watch me for before I noticed you there?”

 

“Too long. There was no reason for you to be embarrassed.”

 

“I know I looked like an idiot.”

 

“You looked like you knew how to have fun. It was enchanting, there's no other word for it.” He's quite serious, she can't help but smile.

 

“The 'most beautiful young woman' you had ever seen? You had seen me before.”

 

“Thinking you're beautiful has never worn off.” And he tells her about the time in South Korea, at an event they did, and about how he couldn't breathe when she walked out in her dress, and how lucky he felt that he got to stand next to her.

 

She can't bring herself to tell Adam that she wants him to leave his marriage for her. She doesn't want that on her shoulders. She doesn't want to be that girl in this story. But she is that girl. She knows it. She wants to say it, it's on the tip of her tongue. _Choose me_.

 

“I don't know how to put an end to what's happening here,” he sighs, and all the hope that had been rising in Daisy deflates. “There was no catharsis in what we did. I find myself.. _._ worse off than ever.” He adds: _“_ Especially after today.”

 

He was in the military, duty is what he knows. Her hand is resting in the middle of the table and tentatively he slides his finger along her thumb and then holds it, continuing to rub the top of her hand in a way that is meant to be comforting but only hurts her. But she doesn't pull her hand away. She can't. She's frozen, immobile. She doesn't want the moment to end.

 

It does end, though. He stands. He walks over to the other side of the table and kisses her forehead. Just a second ago she was patting herself on the back for not crying but warm tears spill down her cheeks. She's a hair-trigger crier, but it's hard to blame herself for this. “If you want to call me, you can. Anytime. I'll answer.” She gets the impression he has something else he wants to say, but he doesn't say it.

 

She doesn't know how long she stays sitting at that table, only that it's dark now and she should be resting up for her scenes tomorrow. But even after that, she stays a little longer.

 

*/*/*

 

Her plane has been sitting on the tarmac for over 20 minutes. She can never sleep through takeoff, so she pulls out her phone and googles his name to look at pictures of him – to kill time, but mostly because she misses him and wants to see his face. She hunches over so no one can see what she's looking at - that would be an embarrassing headline: “ _Star Wars_ Actress Daisy Ridley Obsessed With Married Co-Star”. But the headline already there is just as interesting: “Wife Of _Star Wars_ Actor Adam Driver Files For Divorce”.

 

There's a mad swarm of emotions inside of her, but rising to the top is a rush of sympathy for him: Joanne must have found out somehow... It never should have happened this way. But underneath it all, an inevitable glimmer of hope.

 

She has a text from Adam that she hadn't heard arrive in the loud bustle of the terminal: “I wanted to tell you in person. Flight departing now. See you in London.”

 

*/*/*

 

Adam is flying out from New York so he arrives before her. She lands to a new text from him with his room number and a plea for her to come see him as soon as she can. She's not sure what the press knows so she stays out of sight and keeps her expressions neutral, despite the bubbling giddiness inside of her.

 

It hasn't been much more than two weeks since they last saw each other in Mexico but Daisy knocks on his door and it feels like her eyes are looking out on a whole new world.

 

“Hi.”

 

She smiles shyly: “Hi.” She doesn't know what's coming so she doesn't know how to feel. Instead, she feels everything all at once, 50 different emotions.

 

She expected to find him downcast, depressed – but he's not. Over room service he explains what happened: _he_ told Joanne. After being home for a few days he just knew: he couldn't live a lie with her. It wasn't right not to tell her the truth – all of it, it was cruel not to. She deserved to know what he had done – and _how he felt_. And that was only going to go one way. His wife was everything she should have been – furious, betrayed, brokenhearted. She told him that she deserved better. And he agreed. So she filed. The press got a hold of it long before they were ever meant to find out - Adam hadn't even written a statement yet when the first reports came out.

 

“Don't worry,” Adam tells Daisy. “This doesn't mean you owe me any kind of commitment.”

 

Daisy is already crying, and cries more. “I ruined your marriage.”

 

“ _I_ ruined my marriage,” Adam consoles her. “You didn't do anything. And it may very well be for the best. She could see I wasn't fighting for it, that I wasn't asking her to forgive me. You didn't do it, _it was me_.”

 

“That's not true. If I had said, 'No way' to you in New Zealand, you and her would still be together. It's a shitty foundation for a future relationship.”

 

“She and I would be together, and I would be pining for you. How fair is that to her? That's a shitty foundation too, for a marriage.”

 

Daisy couldn't shake the feeling that Adam's marriage had been in reasonable shape before Daisy decided she wanted what she wanted no matter the cost, but it was hard to regret what had happened when Adam was here in front of her, all hers. She found she couldn't regret any of it – only that Joanne had been hurt. She tells him again that she loves him.

 

“It's not right for me to say this, I can't regret marrying Joanne or the time we had together, but God, the only version of this where no one gets hurt is the one where I met you first. Why didn't I meet you first?” He says this with metaphysical trauma, with all the desperate questioning of a man at the mercy of the stars.

 

Daisy is moved to kiss his hand. They're lying sideways on the bed, propped up on their elbows and facing each other, and finally eating those M&Ms.

 

“Everyone is going to know exactly what happened,” Adam says heavily. “The internet won't be very nice to you.”

 

“I'll manage. You'll hold my hand.”

 

*/*/*

 

Everyone tiptoes around the news of the impending divorce on set. Daisy watches Adam strainedly navigate all of their awkward condolences. John knows. He doesn't know for sure, but he has guessed. JJ has maybe guessed. Probably some of the crew, the ones that are around all the time, they've probably guessed too. They've guessed why his spirits aren't quite so low as one might expect.

 

After a few hazy, sex-filled days, Daisy tells Adam not to come anywhere near her for 48 hours because she needs to work. They've got their big scene coming up and she doesn't feel ready. He's better at the resolution than she is. She only makes it one day.

 

She can't believe the way he has opened up. He has apologized to her for seeming so cold before, but of course she understands why he felt like he had to close himself off, why he blocked off all the inroads they had made every time he came back. And now it's like he's a whole new person, someone she only glimpsed on set before, or in interviews. That same intensity he brings onscreen, but a goofiness and warmth too. She kicks herself for not seeing it sooner. For not seeing it that day at the chemistry test.

 

*/*/*

 

“I love you.”

 

JJ shakes his head. “More angst. You're too happy!”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!


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